There once was a little girl trying to grow up.
And, like almost everyone else, she was different than everybody else. Also, like everybody else, she got teased. She only had one or two good friends most of the time through elementary school and middle school. Everyone else seemed to have so many friends and she was lonely a lot. Every time it was a starry night, she prayed to the brightest one like in Pinocchio, that she could have more friends. Hey, it worked for Geppetto.

When she hit high school, people weren’t as mean and even though she was an oddball, she fit in better. She found a group of six people who loved anime and video games. They were together always.
The girl was happier. They all were really into the internet and showed her how to blog and use social media. She became a midnight mIRC chat room fanatic.

The girl went away to college and started fighting professionally. Strangers started talking to her online more and more, almost everyone being really nice. The girl enjoyed meeting people online so much. She also met fans in person and they were really nice to her.
The more she fought, the more people wanted to chat online. Only a few times did she run into creepy or mean people. If they appeared, like on the Underground Forum, a bunch of White Knights chased them off for her. 🙂 The girl was happy.

Flip forward a number of years to chapter further into the story.
Facebook was invented and the girl was very active on it. She moved back to America from Japan.

She joined team Syndicate. The people were cool and welcomed her.
She felt like she belonged.

Sometimes various people wrote her messages, “Oh I would love to train with you!” and she wrote, “Sure, come to Syndicate.” People never actually made the trip. Then one day, a fan from Philadelphia wrote, “Okay, I booked my plane ticket for next month on the (insert date here.) Here’s the itinerary.” The girl was like, “Wait, you’re really coming?”
It was Serena! She visited on and off for a few years and ended up becoming one of the girl’s closest friends ever, joining Team Syndicate. Serena. The Reen. The Southpaw outlaw. Official Nacho Buddy and Anger Translator. No, we are not sisters, and no, we are not dating. lol

Flip to another chapter.
Eddie from Cage Quest flew her to Washington State to be a guest at his show. While signing T shirts at the table and smiling a lot, some buff guy asked her to put him in an ankle lock and get a picture. Suuuuure, WHY NOT?! So she posed a bunch of times with him and he was so happy and she was very amused.
He gave off the “weird but not dangerous-weird” vibe. He was Rob, from Aardvark Painting! He found her on social media and they became friends. And he wanted to help support her fighting career, but didn’t really care about his business being advertised. The girl insisted on writing something on her banner, and wrote “Aardvark Painting” in plain text.

A few fights later, he sponsored Serena and Serena’s mom came up with the little Aardvark picture. Then the girl used that plus the text “Aardvark painting” and thus, Aardvark Nation was born.

The girl also started a chat room, just like the old days. One lady joined and always typed “roxy roxy roxy” three times when she entered, so the girl always replied, “candy candy candy” and thus they became friends, not only in the chat room, but on other social media.
Also, a veterinarian who did Tae Kwon Do came into the room and they all made friends. They all started traveling to see the girl’s fights, thus the Posse was born.
A lady named Julie, emailed the girl, asking her to try out her new design of shorts “Meili Fighting” for active women. meilifighting.comThey soon became the girl’s favorite shorts and she wore them almost every training session. Then she got to meet her buddy from Twitter Patrick, who she talks about UFC and superhero shows and anime with, and so so many other people I can’t even begin to mention, Bonny, Darth Lemon Bader, Justin T, Eric & Beth from Remove it Restoration, Jay C, Mike C. and family, Jack and Jan, Eric Holden aka My favorite stalker who really doesn’t stalk me but other people talk crap about him but I like him, etc etc!!!!! so many unique people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting!

Fast forward to Invicta 14 where the Posse dressed up as Mortal Kombat characters as a surprise!! They did it again for the next Invicta she fought on.
And her coach John is also her friend who always has her back.

The girl was so happy. She went from being lonely and praying for friends, to having people who would travel the country to see her and spend time with her and dress up in crazy costumes with her.

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I have stress. My life isn’t perfect. I haven’t achieved everything that I want to achieve. Sometimes the Happy Warrior cries and needs to be reminded of the positive things. But I want to take a moment and acknowledge and thank my friends and fans for making my heart so happy. If I haven’t typed your name here, it’s not because I forgot you! I just happened to talk to the above people in the last five hours so their names were first on my social media lists. hahaha <3
Lots of people say to me, "You are always smiling! Why are you always so happy?" Well, I'm not ALWAYS happy, but I'm talking to you right now, and you're being nice to me, so why shouldn't I smile?
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